Best Calorie Counting Apps in 2026: An Honest Comparison

The apps at a glance

What makes a calorie app good

One thing decides whether calorie counting sticks: how fast and effortless the logging is in everyday life. An app that is fiddly to use gets abandoned within days. Three criteria matter most — a large, well-maintained food database, fast logging (barcode, search or photo) and honest pricing without hidden walls. On top of that, privacy is a real factor for many people: where the data is stored and what happens to it.

MyFitnessPal — the biggest database, features behind the paywall

MyFitnessPal has arguably the most extensive food database and has been the market leader for years. The free version lets you log meals and exercise, set goals and sync devices. The catch: handy features like the barcode scanner, custom macro goals and ad-free use were moved into the Premium tier (around €80 a year). That shift — the once-free barcode scanner now costs money — is the most common complaint and the reason many people look for alternatives.

Yazio — recipes and fasting, recently pricier

Yazio is popular, mainly for its recipes and fasting programs. YAZIO PRO costs around €84 a year and became noticeably more expensive in 2026, though discounts are common, plus a 7-day trial. The free version covers calorie logging and basic fasting but shows ads. PRO unlocks the barcode scanner, photo logging, a large recipe library, advanced fasting programs and wearable sync. If recipes and intermittent fasting matter to you, it's a strong pick.

Lifesum — clean design, plan-focused

Lifesum leans on a polished design and ready-made nutrition plans (e.g. keto, high-protein). The base is free, most comfort features sit in Premium (around €45 a year) — making Lifesum the cheapest of the three subscriptions. For beginners who like guided plans it's worth a look, though its food database is smaller than MyFitnessPal's.

Which is the best free calorie counter app?

For pure free calorie counting, the free tiers of MyFitnessPal and Yazio are usable — as long as you can live with manual search instead of a barcode scanner, and with ads. The honest truth: a fully free app that also offers barcode scanning and fast logging is rare, because almost every provider moves exactly those features into a subscription.

How do you count calories most easily?

The easiest tracking comes from minimizing the effort per meal. Three things help: use a large, well-maintained food database so you find entries fast; track roughly but consistently, because approximate numbers over weeks beat perfect ones you quit after three days; and pick an app whose input method fits your day — barcode for packaged products, photo for home-cooked meals, search for the rest.

GymLog AI — the new, AI-based approach

GymLog AI is a new fitness and nutrition app from Germany, currently pre-launch (available via the waitlist). The difference to classic trackers: instead of long forms, you log training and meals by chat and photo — the AI recognizes the food and estimates the values, an AI coach puts your progress in context, and weight is shown as a trend rather than daily noise. Data is processed in a GDPR-compliant way. Since the app isn't public yet, it can't be fully compared with the established apps — if you want to try the AI photo approach early, you can join the waitlist.